How is your first CS game going...?

[grandadmiralbob]

My only complaint with the game is that the message for arrived at destination applies for naval units now patrolling trade. Also the AI seems kinda wonky when it comes to the new combat system, but other than that, I love the expansion. I always hated the maneuver part of war. Good job PDX. I also love the fact that it now show who can join in a coalition against you in peace deals, don't remember that in a DD.

 

[King Gwyn]

My Denmark game. Going for a few more german provinces and Riga so i can intergrate Sweden. Then i'm going all in on colonizing

 

[Kagemin]

Going really well so far. Started as Granada cause Andalusia is now a formable nation, and I never actually got around to get the Re-reconquista achievment. Started by allying Tunis and Morocco to jump Tlemcen, and worked towards geingtt an alliance with the Ottomans after that. Backstabbed Morocco once the Iberians attacked them, even if it took quite a while till they actually did something. I vassalized what remained of Tlemcen and fed them some of the surrounding land, also released Sus in southern Morocco and fed them the rest of Morocco.
Annexed both of them later, even if I'm pretty sure that Sus was a mistake, since half their land is distant overseas. :/ Oh well, still better than them taking up a relations slot I think.

Got attacked a couple times by Castille and friends, but with Ottomans swinging the relative stregth of alliances in my favour I got out pretty quickly by conceding defeat each time.

Then finally Castille was dumb enough to attack Aragon, who was allied to Portugal. I jumped Castille too in the middle of it and got most of the Andalusian provinces from that. Repeated that 15 years later (Castille is so screwed when they lose historic friendship with Portugal, it's not even funny...), and when Aragon was too busy to do anything about it I attacked Portugal for the missing provinces required for forming Andalusia. Queue instant disappointment for just another shade of green...

I released Leon at some point to do some of the coring for me, and am just mopping up Iberia now. Managed to surprise France a bit when the Ottomans actually did something in a war against them (they allied both Portugal and Aragon) and helped me secure a foothold there. After thinking about it for a while I decided to turn Toulouse into a March, I think that'll help me more than trying to take the French land for myself.

Gonna annex Leon soon, mop up what's left of Aragon and Portugal, and the Re-reconquista should finish without too much trouble. Dunno how much more I'll do after that, I mostly started this to get a hang of how things work. Feels a little odd how much easier yet more expensive conquest has become, but so far I'm managing.

 

[grandadmiralbob]

Going really well so far. Started as Granada cause Andalusia is now a formable nation, and I never actually got around to get the Re-reconquista achievment. Started by allying Tunis and Morocco to jump Tlemcen, and worked towards geingtt an alliance with the Ottomans after that. Backstabbed Morocco once the Iberians attacked them, even if it took quite a while till they actually did something. I vassalized what remained of Tlemcen and fed them some of the surrounding land, also released Sus in southern Morocco and fed them the rest of Morocco.
Annexed both of them later, even if I'm pretty sure that Sus was a mistake, since half their land is distant overseas. :/ Oh well, still better than them taking up a relations slot I think.

Got attacked a couple times by Castille and friends, but with Ottomans swinging the relative stregth of alliances in my favour I got out pretty quickly by conceding defeat each time.

Then finally Castille was dumb enough to attack Aragon, who was allied to Portugal. I jumped Castille too in the middle of it and got most of the Andalusian provinces from that. Repeated that 15 years later (Castille is so screwed when they lose historic friendship with Portugal, it's not even funny...), and when Aragon was too busy to do anything about it I attacked Portugal for the missing provinces required for forming Andalusia. Queue instant disappointment for just another shade of green...

I released Leon at some point to do some of the coring for me, and am just mopping up Iberia now. Managed to surprise France a bit when the Ottomans actually did something in a war against them (they allied both Portugal and Aragon) and helped me secure a foothold there. After thinking about it for a while I decided to turn Toulouse into a March, I think that'll help me more than trying to take the French land for myself.

Gonna annex Leon soon, mop up what's left of Aragon and Portugal, and the Re-reconquista should finish without too much trouble. Dunno how much more I'll do after that, I mostly started this to get a hang of how things work. Feels a little odd how much easier yet more expensive conquest has become, but so far I'm managing.

How did you do that?

 

[Autoclave]

horrible. I feel like a complete noob that is too dumb to expand properly.

 

[Kagemin]

How did you do that?

Mostly by being opportunistic.
Getting a foothold in North Africa is usually easy if you get some alliances in place. Best is 2 out of 3 between Morocco, Tlemcen, and Tunis to attack the 3rd, most of the time that will mean you attack Tlemcen.
With Tunis I was about as strong as Morocco at that point, I decided to wait until the Iberians attack them to be safe though.
Whenever they attacked me I just sat back in Africa and waited until they grow tired of the war and I can peace out without any real losses.

An early Iberian Wedding would have been really annoying, I think I would have moved capital to Africa and expanded there then, but as is I could afford to stay European. And once Castille attacked Aragon and brought Portugal against them it was pretty much over for them.

 

[heroforhirerob]

Started with the Ottoman Empire...a few observations...

1) My standard conquer everyone around me start was stopped in its tracks immediately as soon as I noticed the new coring costs. I decided to wait until I got the first Ottoman idea to do anymore major occupation. Instead, I fought a trade war with the Mamelukes to weaken them by taking their money and allies away. It definitely made me think more before I went to war. I never would have fought a "trade war" in past games.

2) Austria PUed Hungary very early on...which is the first time I'd seen that in a while. Development seems to cost a lot, but you can put it off for a while and focus on buildings in the bigger nations.

3) Money isn't nearly as much of an issue if you fight reasonably successful wars thanks to the new looting mechanics. This works both ways of course as it takes a while for the province recovers and this includes your new conquests if you have them.

4) The general tone of the game seems to be intended to slow down the pace of expansion...at least early on. I'm only 25 years in...so lots more to see I'm sure.

 

[Montiaci]

Going really well so far. Started as Granada cause Andalusia is now a formable nation, and I never actually got around to get the Re-reconquista achievment. Started by allying Tunis and Morocco to jump Tlemcen, and worked towards geingtt an alliance with the Ottomans after that. Backstabbed Morocco once the Iberians attacked them, even if it took quite a while till they actually did something. I vassalized what remained of Tlemcen and fed them some of the surrounding land, also released Sus in southern Morocco and fed them the rest of Morocco.
Annexed both of them later, even if I'm pretty sure that Sus was a mistake, since half their land is distant overseas. :/ Oh well, still better than them taking up a relations slot I think.

Got attacked a couple times by Castille and friends, but with Ottomans swinging the relative stregth of alliances in my favour I got out pretty quickly by conceding defeat each time.

Then finally Castille was dumb enough to attack Aragon, who was allied to Portugal. I jumped Castille too in the middle of it and got most of the Andalusian provinces from that. Repeated that 15 years later (Castille is so screwed when they lose historic friendship with Portugal, it's not even funny...), and when Aragon was too busy to do anything about it I attacked Portugal for the missing provinces required for forming Andalusia. Queue instant disappointment for just another shade of green...

I released Leon at some point to do some of the coring for me, and am just mopping up Iberia now. Managed to surprise France a bit when the Ottomans actually did something in a war against them (they allied both Portugal and Aragon) and helped me secure a foothold there. After thinking about it for a while I decided to turn Toulouse into a March, I think that'll help me more than trying to take the French land for myself.

Gonna annex Leon soon, mop up what's left of Aragon and Portugal, and the Re-reconquista should finish without too much trouble. Dunno how much more I'll do after that, I mostly started this to get a hang of how things work. Feels a little odd how much easier yet more expensive conquest has become, but so far I'm managing.

Is Andalusia an Iberian cultural union?

 

[CzokletMuss]

Everything went fine until I attacked Polish-Lithuanian army led by Sobieski...

 

[Kagemin]

Is Andalusia an Iberian cultural union?

No.

 

[Lapoleon]

Haven't been able to play much but I did start a game as Holland and planning on going tall. Got rather lucky with Philip of Burgundy dying in the conquest of Calais and a free exit out of the PU. Instantly made a few alliances and made some claims on Flanders. Jumped on Flanders which was without allies and crushed them.
I'm currently deciding whether or not I can annex them. Austria has inspired Burgundy unfortunately as I would have liked to see them live longer.

 

[queermobile]

Only played for about fifteen years as Ayutthaya and another fifteen as Austria. Haven't paid for the expansion (yet) so when I saw development was locked I just closed it down. Did see France get absolutely wrecked by England & Portugal, Castile, and Aragon all declaring wars on it separately. Too bad Burgundy had a regency the entire time.

 

[awelltrainedfer]

I'll tell you once I actually get a game that's playable.

First attempt as Holland into Netherlands died when I took Artois from France in a peace deal and the game instantly crashed and corrupted the entire install.

Second game as a released Normandy was going great. Then around 1500 I just happened to notice that every single trade center and estuary in the world was gone. Just gone. It still cost a tonne to take those provinces, but they gave no benefit.

Third attempt as a custom nation in the lower British Isles I didn't even bother trying, because apparently all of ghost England's Parliament seats counted as mine; raising my stability cost by 10% for absolutely no reason and ensuring all my parliament arguments were likely to fail because I couldn't bribe those seats.

 

[in heaven]

Started as Hansa and was quite surprised how low AE i was getting in HRE. Took quite alot of lands without coalition, and preparing to go tall (even know its not a very efficient in current game state).

 

[Arizal]

I rolled randomly Viyajanagar, and it is not going so well. I have more provinces, but the only reason I managed that is thanks to my allies. Otherwise, the events, drove me to a very bad situation. It can now only improve, since my state collapsed and I now have a new dynasty. It has been interesting, but frustrating because of some mistakes I did.

(I didn't know that clicking on the province in which I want my troops to go to reinforce a battle while having selected the troops who are actually fighting in the battle cancel the battles).

So far, I like the forts, but I find the coring costs too high.

 

[AndreasPhokas]

Playing Croatia I had a decent first monarch and my second monarch had awesome stats. Breaking free of hungary was tricky they're tougher now, but luckily Poland-Lithuania-Bohemia Supported my breakout. I have Istria through Ragusa on the coastline with varaad(north of Zagreb),Zagreb Slavonia and the two Bosnian provinces to the south and I netted an alliance with Austria.

Now im in a tough spot. The ottomans devoured Serbia Wallachia, and the beyliks...And they now border me.

So now im on the frontlines against the ottoblob and the reformation is about to hit. Austria and Hungary are allied so I cant expand north and on the otherside of the Adriatic the Papacy is strong with a lot of allies and Castille(with aragon attached) is allied to Naples. Sorta boxed in for now.

Croatias new color is awesome

 

[Mr. Charisma22]

Playing as England, and France got destroyed in an early war and I am now free to impose my will on western Europe.

 

[catropis]

Playing as Switzerland currently. Castille is allied to both Austria and France. Luckily Austria is only 2 provinces now thanks to me feeding styria. France is my ally and I am looking at eating Italy in the next few years.

 

[Bignose]

Playing as England, it's 1510 and I've conquered most of Scotland, took the Shetlands and Faeroe islands from Norway, have all of Ireland, took Picardie and Artois from Burgundy and took Flanders as a vassal and integrated, and took Northern France and the west coast of France before I used the mission to PU him. Im allied to Castille, Portugal, Savoy, Milan, and the Pope. I also started colonizing the Caribbean and stole Bermuda from Castille in the French PU war. Aragon, Sweden, Burgundy and Austria +9 a bunch of HRE minors are in a coalition against me. Tried posting a screenshot but it wasn't working so oh well.

EDIT: My king died a few months after I got the PU and it ended because France hated me. Now I'm stuck with a large coalition war and a restoration cb that I wont use because it's pointless

 

[Khundes]

I tried for Big Blue Blob.

I made it to 32 provinces in 1466 before a pan-HRE coalition trashed me, despite my alliances to Castille, Austria, a blobby Milan and Savoy. I need to find a new attack plan. Faster, less AE-intense, but strong alliances are still key.

This achievement is HARD.

(Or maybe I just suck)